


Fly

by Coffin Liqueur (HP_Lovecats)



Category: Biohazard | Resident Evil (Gameverse), Resident Evil - All Media Types
Genre: Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Family, Game: Resident Evil 7, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-05
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:14:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24017293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HP_Lovecats/pseuds/Coffin%20Liqueur
Summary: Two parents fret as a wayward child takes a "vacation" to his uncle's house.
Relationships: Jack Baker/Marguerite Baker, Joe Baker & Lucas Baker
Comments: 3
Kudos: 9





	1. The Takeoff

“Boy’s down at my brother’s shack again, I reckon.”

“You don’t  _ know  _ that -- …!” Marguerite’s face was panicked, although she kept her tone wound down; as she continued, Jack simply slowly frowned sorrow -  _ I know… I know… _ \- and began to turn, just so as to have room to pace. “Last time that happened was two  _ years  _ ago. He ain’t  _ ever  _ disappeared on us like this since then.”

“You know Joe’s got no phone,” Jack said, something in his tone meandering along with his steps - up to a window. He turned his face up into the evening light, blinked slowly; drunk a slow, slow breath in to steel himself.

Wiped his brow, mouth turning.

Every beat of his heart in his chest put another pulse of uncomfortable heat in his system, bordering on dizziness.

Lucas was missing.

And he knew in his gut where the boy’d gone.

...Every other feeling he had on the matter was outweighed by the pain of seeing Marguerite like this. Part o’ him assumed that she blamed him, and therefore felt guilty, before reminding itself that she would never blame him for something like that. For this.

The rest of him simply knew it well enough.  _ As  _ enough.

The state she was in wasn’t about him.

It was about her son.

She treasured the boy (echoes of thought of  _ do I really not do the same enough? _ and, conflictingly, defensively,  _ ain’t I been a good enough father to our Zoe? Seldom you come to  _ her  _ aid _ , before he auto-countered himself, again, with  _ she doesn’t blame you; surely, she can’t; you don’t got nothing to fight _ ) and hers was a terrifying, cowing kind of anger, frenzy at the desire to tear the whole world up to find their missing child.

...Maybe it wasn’t anger. But that was the easiest way he understood it.

In any case, he was terrified by it, while at the same time hating that he was putting her through it - the all-consuming  _ burn  _ of anger or the  _ rip  _ of panic.

Feeling one of those odd plunges of uncounterable  _ guilt _ .

...He paced ahead further to the window frame. Propped his elbow against it, and let his arm cross forward, and his head drop across it. Not in defeat, but in… laying things down. To think.

_ Yeah, I know, Marguerite. I know, and I know that it’s my fault. I assume full damn responsibility. _

  
  
  


He had hit the boy.

Again.

...Marguerite had never told him not to do that. She hadn’t ever seemed to mind - ‘stead of try to tell him off, she would always simply run to Lucas when he was small and hug and kiss him into compliance and reassurance of their love and try to explain to him why Daddy had a reason for doing it. What the rationale behind it was. Why, in a sweet voice that detracted from the point, Lucas should _ just behave. _

Lucas never did learn to  _ just behave. _

The… nerve-twist that tempted deeper wincing wrenched further in his chest. He tried to give no sign of it, even not facing Marguerite, in an attempt to  _ stay resolute. _

On one hand, God, it wasn’t his fault. Lucas shoulda learned better by now. What things he would and wouldn’t tolerate. Why did he have to be so impudent at every goddamn turn, when he and his mother had been trying to teach him for years.

On the other…

...he’d  _ broken the boy’s _ nose.

He had really, really hurt him.

He couldn’t blame him for running away.

...And yet what else did it say that he was mostly guilty at this because of how the kid’s mama was distraught at the consequences,  _ God damn, Lucas, he wished you would have learned, then he wouldn’t have had to, and now you’ve gotta go running off to  _ **_Joe…!_ **

...He grit his teeth tight and lowered his head, and let his spine tremble for all of two seconds.

The flash of an impulse to cry that ran through his body as much out of goddamn  _ self-pity  _ and wholly dishonorable self-defense ‘stead of staying strong and firm that he was so fuckin’ glad he’d so-long since learned to repress.

He pushed himself back off the windowsill perhaps too fast - but begun at once meandering toward Marguerite with his arms wide open, in a side-to-side sway of heavy damn weight.

For a split second, he could have sworn like she was still looking at him  _ that  _ way.

Sharp and fierce.

_ What have you done. _

...But in an instant, it wavered, her lip trembling, and he felt reassured in his ability to be useful - to serve his purpose well. In his head, he was smiling, if sadly, but dared not to show it on his face.

She threw herself against him and sobbed - a high, sharp noise. She leaned against him like he was a wall, until he rested his arms against and around her and cradled, looking down and inspecting her face. One tilt of his head one way, and another tilt the other. Considering, with sad, sad respect.

She wrapped hers around him, too, and he finally took some relief in, in fact, feeling useful.

“Marguerite,” he said, soft as can be.

A couple of the most feather-gentle pats at her back - he wasn’t sure quite out of what thought, other than reassurance with that kind of reassertion that he was there to hold her secure, too. She sucked a tiny-thin high breathy sound in at the second of those; he could not smile - not sure whether to feel good at the acknowledgement or bad at the sound.

“We’re just gonna have to wait till tomorrow…” And then, a soft, smooth, downy whisper: “...Don’t worry, none…”

...He pulled his arms closer against her back, his brows knit tight in the look of I’m sorry.

It was what had happened, two years ago.

After a fight, Lucas had stolen a boat and gone out to Joe’s shack. Hadn’t been twenty-four hours before, after this same panic, there’d been a ring at the doorbell, and there’d been Lucas, standing in front of Joe, who’d given him a friendly slap on the back - lighter than anything of the kind Jack had ever gotten - chucklingly telling him to  _ go on ahead, boy; tell your folks you’re ready to hang in there now. _

...Not that he was  _ sorry. _

Not that he was even  _ okay. _

...Marguerite’s body seized against Jack’s, and he could tell easily that she was trying very hard not to sob too out-loud. A lighter sort of flicker licked up in his brain, and, after a moment of widening eyes and turning his face further down to look at her, at it…

...He slowly, slowly closed his eyes. Resolutely. Wrapping his arms tighter around her; resting the side of his jaw against the top of her head so as to firmly keep himself… fixed against her, as needed.

Minute, minute turns with each other. A sorrowful dance.

...Something that tasted utterly  _ bitter  _ had started to come in with Jack’s next breath in. 

The wince began twisting into his face, at the bracingness, as he let the statement take shape; felt it tensing as he rasped it out and left a feeling of tightness in its wake:

“...Where else has Lucas got to  _ go _ , anyways.”


	2. The Landing

Lucas fuckin'...

...hhhhhhhhhhated his own acute knowledge of how much closer Uncle Joe's house was than it had felt when he'd been a little brat. (As opposed to a _big_ brat, he thought, grinning and _grimacing_ at once, dull-eyed, into the humidity-misted distance between mangroves.)

Sure had been swell, back when the days'd been nice and long. Back on _those_ days, tshh -- what, an hour or two's venture out along the trails, and _less_ than that on a boat trip, had felt like _half_ o' the _"adventure"_ , as it was. Visiting Uncle Joe'd felt like a fuckin' _event_. It had felt like skippin' town without any need to _think_ about when you'd have to go "home", 'cause it'd felt so _fenced off_ by stretches of so-many-trees and so-much-water, and another whole-ass long journey back.

But now?

He _hhhhhhhated_ the knowledge that the boat was chuggin' him along to a place that wasn't special to _no one_ , really. Not due to distance or lack of familiarity; he blinked burnt and groggy under the sun through branches comin' down to dapple the water black-and-muddy-and-green.

He _hhhhhhh **hhhhhated**_ that it wasn't any goddamn escape.

The skin around his skull began to heat just sort of sweating as he knew, and he _knew_ , that Mama and Jack would know exactly where he'd gone to - and if they _thought_ they didn't at first, that'd be sure to change, once they did the token scourin'-of-his-usual-haunts and found his li'l "getaway vehicle" of choice gone from the boathouse.

The boat grazed a root, and he rocked with its hull while his face continued to burn.

He seethed through teeth baring, longer and longer to the gums, with his eyes narrowin'.

He figured the old geezer wouldn't be able to _resist_ giving him some kinda flack - if not another whack across the face ( _momentarily_ , his _seethe_ twisted fast and forceful into a narrow fight-pickin' non-grin - _yeah... I bet -- ! The oooooool' fuckin' chicken wouldn't be dumb enough to make the same mistake twice in a row...!_ \- before it drew back to form, defensively, at the lack o' real _win_ behind it, at his thoughts a-segueing back), then the fuckin' bully _surely_ wouldn't be able to keep 'imself from giving him a lecture. From takin' away something fun, or from putting him on the _spot_ for fuckin' stealing the boat...!

...The heat boiled his head until the feeling in it hit some point o' chemical change, and at it, began to sit the way stomach bile did risin' to the back of a throat: al-most _sweetly_ -tart but acidic and hot and makin' you want to _spit_ , which he did, twisting aside and hawking with a vocalized little sticky sound down beside him askirt of the boat's wake.

He inspected it dully, but _judgingly_. Watched white froth turn and trail and dissolve alongside the peak of a crestless wave.

He blinked once. Twisted his back further to lean with the momentum of the boat, continuing to inspect the trail, half-expecting to see even one bead of blood dot the water.

He _sniffed_ when he didn't, and winced at it, momentarily seizing before he curled forward; scrubbed his upper lip back and forth with the rough part of his sleeve. Squinted freshly as he lowered it down before his eyes, and showed his front teeth again with that lip curling as he found the fabric spotted with dry chunks of black and brown.

He steadily blinked once more; lips shaped a small _"oh"_ as he continued to eye it, turnin' his wrist. He opened his palm and eyed that, too, screwin' up one eye; found nothin', but had thought vaguely that it was worth a look.

Then his chest swelled and pressed its air back out twice, quick-like, in an attempt to work off a petrifaction, a _stiffening_ in his ribs, before he sat back in the boat, eyes shutting and head lollin’ back skyward. His hand stayed over the water; he let it drop, backhand, with a splash. Let summer-warmed ‘n grubby water trail and trace around it.

 _“Fuck — …”_ he murmured, thick and sticky ‘n breaking off at the end of it, before he put ‘imself suddenly under shade with the sheer _depth_ of a flop to lean forward. He scanned the nearby water’s edge from his sunken sockets, under a heavily-fallen brow.

Sure as could be.

There was Uncle Joe’s dock, right in front of Uncle Joe’s shack, little ‘n square and still, hell, for everything, lookin’ like a place some wanderer would crack into in a story and find traces of some _more_ stories inside, if they just took their pick o’ knickknacks; a place some forest beastie in disguise would be livin’ in, with _secrets_ to share.

It was cheated of some of its sense o’ roughness and mystery with the light, at this part of the day, the sun makin’ its surfaces look orangey such that they stood out against all the wilderness green without any blend-in, making them look even smaller than Lucas knew their space was on the inside.

Not only was it all too close to where it was he was tryin’a get away from, there was a spotlight on it.

His organs stretched to feel as if they were descending low inside of him, all as he bit his lip and let his eyes fall - just to a hint of shadow below the edge of the dock - as he turned the boat. Cut the speed - just a bit ‘n a bit every time.

Acid sat in his systems again.

It was the only place he fuckin’ well had to go, and he was underwhelmed as he pulled up to it, even knowin’ exactly where he’d been going.

It felt like getting outta jail, just to pull right up in front of another jail, and yet?

A tug overrode the flare-up of shivering and shattering lighting up and flaring along a web under his skin that told him it wasn’t enough; that he still oughta look for someplace better than _here_.

It tugged him through and through so far that his eyes flew wide open - pale in the shadows still cast over and all around ‘em - at the bump of the boat’s edge against wood. Not with unease, either. Not with agitation.

Tugged him into standing too fast when he got it to a stop; into tripping with a jerked-in _hitch_ through his teeth as he caught himself with one palm on the deck - throwin’ a look back over his shoulder and catching the boat drifting back out into the water at the end of his out-kicked leg, sputtering as he gave li’l full-body bends for extra _momentum and effort_ as, with that same leg, he fished it back in. Once he hauled himself up onto the pier, kept prodding him with little _zaps_ that had his hands missing loops of mooring again and again to _spat and hissed_ little curses before faster retries with it, up until the boat was _fixed_ in its trailin’ in the water like a little flag.

And finally, it tugged him back into motion once he stood up from _that_ ol’ step before he even really had time to rise.

Eyes big and wide and looking out into the water again like he had some kinda _hunter_ right on his heel, Lucas held his stance low as he rounded the shack - with big steps takin’ their care to be soft, like a bowlegged stork. He ducked lower on catching the shack’s shade side - closed and pressed in close to the door, melting into that shade, before he knocked a few times, in rapid _tattattattattattdah…_ -ing.

He only had time to gawp for a second before on open, it flew.

And the draft o’ the movement of the door swept it all clean - the tug, the _buzz_ , and all, leaving only room for the bile reverting to a satisfying burn.

Lucas started to smile a non-smile again - one that showed white and long, and held surprisingly comfortably _on_ the edge of deciding what it wanted to be.

“Hoo- _well_ , now,” Uncle Joe said, in that gruff-’n-husky yet _jabbing_ voice - hittin’ like the _rolls_ of a boat in _hard_ peaks on rough water - steppin’ forward into the space that Lucas’s eyes had been on readily, from one shade o’ shadows to another. “...Fancy seein’ _you_ passin’ by today, pup.”

His semi-smile made its decision to drop the _semi_. The upper lids of his eyes slipped down, in reflexive musing gratification.

He’d always kinda liked that address.

Was certainly better than _boy_. Weren’t callin’ him a _kid_ , after all, which he _weren’t_. Was much more… _honest_ than that.

Felt _wilder_. He got that.

 _Uncle Joe_ got that.

It was outta the same thing they _got_ , he subconsciously _knew_ , that Joe steppin’ forward and holding out one fuckin’ tree-trunk arm at his side was a cue, and he raced to answer it, mirrorin’ the movement and walking right into Joe _hooking_ him with that arm - a mix of both _firmness_ and _loosey-goosiness_ where each thing counted it, too, felt _wilder_ , and made for what Lucas knew perfectly well-and-good was a _hug_ , but felt no inclination to think of the word and want to _push away and bolt._

To think of any kinda _anything to prove_ or any motions he was being led into carried out; and want to hawk sour-tastin’ thoughts out through his throat again.

“Heard that boat comin’ before you came into view, Lucas,” Uncle Joe said. “Didn’t know whether your sister was comin’ along at first, or what.

“But if you’re on your own this far out, I’m guessin’ this ain’t no approved _day trip_ , or nothin’.”

Uncle Joe stepped back. Put hands on Lucas’s shoulders. That _did_ make him wanna squirm, a bit, ‘n yet even _that_ quieted, as he wasn’t stopped from addin’ to the distance.

They _both_ met each other with mirrored narrow eyes ‘n furrowed brows.

Agreement on somethin’ making sense well enough right away.

Lucas polished his dagger-glare _sharper_ , before he looked down at the sole of a shoe before it dragged in under him. A rockin’ half-pace back, and another. The bridge of his nose wrinkled slightly, and he winced again.

“ -- _Nah_ -uh,” he hacked out.

Joe hummed roughly, as he turned to head back inside.

The door was wide open, and taking deliberate steps now, raisin’ his head already to skim in birdlike _darts_ inside, Lucas followed, mind only just-trained for any hypothetical word before both of ‘em were mentally, too, fully _in_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> P-p-p- _pardon silly Nigel_ as he commences trotting back to his multi-chapters like nothing happened.


End file.
